[ken21]

in the old days book publishers were book lovers.

but in the 1970s, gradually the corporations bought out the book publishers. and, over the years there have been major consolidations with international publishers in the fore.

while the former tended to keep books in print for years, a change in the tax laws, accelerated the trend to letting books go out of print because inventories became expensive. a new edition could be got up for more money.

corporations saw books as commodities, and pursued the mass market, which worked against scholarly books, that in the end became more expensive to produce.

[TopQuark]

corporations saw books as commodities, and pursued the mass market, which worked against scholarly books, that in the end became more expensive to produce. The inflation rate on books seems to be similar to that of higher education. And the reason is that the instructor's or author's labor is hardly mechanizable. So, the relative price for professors and authors increases.

The second, I believe less significant, reason is the higher specialization in the society that results in smaller runs of each book. Again, the fixed costs do not keep up, and the price of books is rising faster than the average inflation. This is, of course, more visible with highly technical books.

THere is also category substitution: witness how many FReepers refer to the Web as "education." When one browses the net, one does not read.